wiki:HowTo/UseOpenFlowHWSwitchesIG

Version 5 (modified by pjayanth@bbn.com, 7 years ago) (diff)

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This page provides a guide on how to do the OpenFlowOVS tutorial using the Hardware OpenFlow switches present at the IG racks. This can server as a general guide on how to use the HW switches.

Step 1. Obtain resources

About GENI OpenFlow switches
GENI offers access to hardware OpenFlow switches. Each OpenFlow switch, in most cases, can support only one controller. On the IG racks the switch is sliced based on VLANs, so each VLAN is its own virtual datapath.

To force the links between the VMs to go through the rack OpenFlow switch, the three VMs must be on separate physical hosts on the rack. Our experiment will:

  • Bind the Xen VMs to different physical hosts.

1.1 Find your RSPecs

The RSpecs for this tutorial are site specific. If you are attending a tutorial, use the site and IP network that was given to you on your worksheet. If you are doing this at home, choose a site from : clemson, cornell, gatech, gpo, illinois, kansas, uky, kettering, max, missouri, northwestern, nysernet, nyu, sox, stanford, wisconsin.

In the URLs below, replace <AGGREGATE-NAME> with the name of the site you are using (clemson, cornell, kansas, uky, kettering, max, northwestern, nysernet, stanford or wisconsin).

The RSpec you need is at:

  • http://www.gpolab.bbn.com/experiment-support/OpenFlowHW/pvtVlan/ig-<AGGREGATE-NAME>.rspec. (Reserves compute resources and specifies location of your controller.)

1.2 Edit your RSpecs

Open your RSpec in a text editor to make the following changes:

  • Replace the string <CONTROLLER_IP> (at the bottom of the RSpec) with the IP address of your controller.

1.3 Reserve Resources

  • Use your favorite resource reservation tool (Omni, jFed, Portal) to reserve your resources. For example, if you are using Omni and the MAX aggregate:

omni -a max-ig createsliver <YOUR_SLICE_NAME> ig-max.rspec

Step 2. Configure and Initialize

To get ready for the tutorial you will need to have the following windows open:

  • one window with ssh into the controller
  • one window with ssh into host1
  • two windows with ssh into host2
  • one window with ssh into host3

Depending on which tool and OS you are using there is a slightly different process for logging in. If you don't know how to SSH to your reserved hosts learn how to login.

2a. Configure the Controller for the Hardware Switch: Useful Tips

Which port is connected to which host

To learn about the ports on which the Hosts are connected to the HW Switch, you need to run the Controller and execute a curl command.

2b. Run your controller.

To get started with the Tutorial, follow the steps listed on the page Running the Floodlight Controller